Typical Product Manager interviews will consist of questions in the following areas:

Behavioral

Technical

Analytical

Product sense

Strategy/vision (for somewhat senior candidates)

Some companies will explicitly judge your performance in areas like creativity, leadership, and cultural fit, but even then, the types of questions they ask to assess this will fall into one of the above categories. I will share the types of questions in each group and how to prepare for them.

Here’s a situation I’ve seen dozens of times: a friend interviews at a company. When I ask them how it went, they say: “I answered all of the questions, so I think I will get the offer.” A few days later, reality kicks in – they didn’t get the offer. In some instances, I’ve had friends tell me they screwed up in an interview (or two), and they still got the offer.

What’s happening here is that some people believe that an interview is simply about getting the “right” answers. In reality, the company conducting the interview is looking at many additional factors. I’ll go over them below.